I should not, therefore,
sorrow as if I were to see their faces no more.
I now took my farewell of that sea and those cliffs. I should see them
often ere we went, but I should not feel so near them again. Even this
parting said that I must "sit loose to the world"--an old Puritan phrase,
I suppose; that I could gather up only its uses, treasure its best things,
and must let all the rest go; that those things I called mine--earth, sky,
and sea, home, books, the treasured gifts of friends--had all to leave
me, belong to others, and help to educate them. I should not need them. I
should have my people, my souls, my beloved faces tenfold more, and could
well afford to part with these. Why should I mind this chain passing to
my eldest boy, when it was only his mother's hair, and I should have his
mother still?
So my thoughts went on thinking themselves, until at length I yielded
passively to their flow.
I found Wynnie looking very grave when I went into the drawing-room. Her
mother was there, too, and Mr.
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